By MARIANNE ROHRLICH

Published: November 9, 2006

Pottery Barn Bed and Bath and Pottery Barn Kids, known primarily to New Yorkers through catalogs, will open stores in Manhattan for the first time this week. The decorator Thomas O'Brien, who designed the bed-and-bath shop, above, said he tried to make it feel ''more like home than a store.'' The children's store was conceived as ''an easy place to bring the children,'' said Laura Alber, the president of Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn's parent company, with ''story times, puppet shows and singalongs.'' Pottery Barn Bed and Bath opens tomorrow at 100-104 Seventh Avenue (16th Street), and Pottery Barn Kids opens on Saturday at 1311 Second Avenue (69th Street). MARIANNE ROHRLICH